Stolen

REJECTION

Bauer brought my breakfast the next morning, along with a coffee for herself. We settled at the table and, after getting the "How's breakfast? How did you sleep?" formalities out of the way, I said, "I'd really like to see Ruth. If it's possible." I kept my eyes downcast, voice as near to groveling as I could manage. It stung like hell, but I had more important things than wounded dignity to consider.

Bauer was silent a moment, then laid her hand atop mine. I fought the urge to pull away and kept my gaze down so she wouldn't see my reaction.

"It isn't possible, Elena. I'm sorry. Doctor Matasumi and Colonel Tucker think it's a security risk. I can only push things so far before they start shoving back."

"How is Ruth?" I asked. "Still depressed?"

Bauer paused, then nodded. "A bit. More adjustment problems than usual."

"Maybe if she saw me. A familiar face."

"No, Elena. Really, I can't. Please don't ask again."

I picked up a slice of apple and nibbled at it, then said, "Well, maybe she could have another visitor, then. What about Savannah? That might perk her up."

Bauer tapped her nails against her mug. "You know, that might not be such a bad idea. But, again, there's the security issue."

"Is there? I thought Savannah hadn't come into her powers yet. Now with me, there's the danger that Ruth and I could plot something together. I understand that. But what kind of spells could Savannah cast that Ruth couldn't already do herself?"

"That's a good point. I'll mention it to Lawrence. Doctor Carmichael and I are worried about Ruth. A visit from Savannah might be just what she needs. Very thoughtful of you, Elena, to think of it."

Hey, I'm a thoughtful kind of gal. No ulterior motives here. "It might be good for Savannah, too," I said. "An older witch to talk to, now that her mother's dead."

Bauer flinched at that. Good shot, Elena. Nice and low. I decided to pluck out the barb before it had time to fester. Continue my thoughtful ways… and keep worming into Bauer's good graces.

"I enjoyed meeting Leah yesterday," I said. "Thanks for arranging it."

"I'll do what I can, Elena. I know this isn't… the best of circumstances."

"Not as bad as it could be. Though I am going to miss a publication deadline if I'm not out by next week. I don't suppose there's any chance…"

Bauer gave a tiny smile. "Sorry, Elena. No promises."

"Worth a shot." I finished my orange juice. "So, when we were discussing careers yesterday, we forgot to ask you about yours. Do you work for the family business? Pulp and paper, right?"

"That's right. My father retired a few years back, so I head the business now."

"Wow."

A wan smile. "There's very little 'wow' about it. I'm only there because my father had the misfortune to sire only two children. My younger brother took over the company after my father retired. Actually, 'took over' is a minor exaggeration. My father handed him the company. It proved to be too much for my brother. He killed himself in ninety-eight."

"I'm sorry."

"After that, I was the heir by default, much to my father's chagrin. If he hadn't had a stroke after my brother's death, he'd probably have taken the reins back rather than hand them to a woman. Like I said, old company, old family. A daughter's place is to marry well and bring fresh blood to the board of directors. Technically, I run the company, but in reality I'm only a figurehead, a woman still reasonably young and attractive enough to trot out at major functions, show the world how progressive the Bauer family is. CEOs, VPs, they do all the work. They think I can't handle it. It doesn't matter if I'm twice as smart as my brother was. Twice as ambitious. Twice as driven. But you must know what that's like."

"Me? I don't really-"

"The only female werewolf? A bright, strong-willed young woman invading the last bastion of male exclusivity? Come on. This Pack of yours. They treat you like some kind of pet, don't they?"

"Jer-They aren't like that."

She was quiet. I glanced up from my breakfast to see her watching me with a smile of satisfaction, as if I'd said exactly what she wanted to hear.

"You get respect?" she asked.

I shrugged, hoping it would wipe the satisfaction from her smile. It didn't. Instead she inched forward in her chair. Her eyes burned with the same intensity I'd seen yesterday when she'd asked me about my life.

"You enjoy special status, don't you? The only female."

"I wouldn't say that."

She laughed. Triumph. "I've talked to that other werewolf, Elena. Patrick Lake. He knew everything about you. You speak for the Pack leader. You intercede with outside werewolves on his behalf. You can even make decisions in his stead."

"I'm just a glorified mediator," I said. "When it comes to mutts, I do more housecleaning than policy-making."

"But you are entrusted with the power to speak for the Alpha. Immense power in your world. The trusted aide of the most important werewolf and the lover of the second most important. All because you're the only female."

She smiled as if unaware she'd just insulted me. I wanted to tell her that Clay and I fell in love before I became "the only female werewolf" and that I'd earned any status I had with the Pack. But I wouldn't rise to the bait. I didn't need to. She only paused for breath before continuing.

"Do you know what's the worst thing about my life, Elena?"

I thought of rhyming off a list, but doubted she'd appreciate the effort.

"Boredom," she said. "I'm tied to a job no one will let me do, stuck in a life no one will let me lead. I've tried to take advantage of it, the spare time, the money. Mountain-climbing, alpine skiing, deep-sea diving. You name it. I've done it. The riskier and more expensive, the better. But do you know what? I'm not happy. I'm not fulfilled."

"Huh." A headache knotted behind my eyes.

Bauer leaned forward. "I want more."

"It must be difficult-"

"I deserve more," she said.

Before I could try another response, she stood and sailed from the cell like a prima donna after her greatest performance.

"What the hell was that about?" I muttered after she'd left.

The headache tightened. Damn it, I was a mess. Trampled spine, punctured stomach, and now a headache. I thought about Bauer. Enough of your problems, lady, let's talk about mine. I chuckled to myself, then gasped as the laugh sent splinters of pain coursing through my skull. I rubbed the back of my neck. The pain only worsened. When I lay on the bed, the light overhead scorched my eyes. Damn it. I didn't have time for a headache. I had so much to do. Finish breakfast, shower, scrub the bloodstains off my shirt, plot how to escape this hellhole, and foil the villains' evil plans. A very busy timetable for someone confined to an underground cage.

I forced myself up from bed. The sudden movement felt like needles stabbing through my eyes. Tension headache? All things considered, I was entitled to one. Rubbing the back of my neck again, I headed for the shower.

"Elena?"

I turned and looked around. No one was there.

"Ruth?" I said, though the voice didn't sound like hers. It wasn't the way Ruth had communicated with me either. Ruth's voice had been audible. This one was more something I sensed or felt rather than heard.

"Elena? Corne on!"

This time, I smiled. Though the voice was still a whisper, too faint to recognize, the exasperation was remarkably identifiable. Paige.

I closed my eyes, prepared to reply, and realized I had no idea what I was doing. It wasn't like talking to Jeremy. With Jeremy, communication took place in a dream state, where I imagined I could both see and hear him. It sounded and felt like natural conversation. This didn't. Paige's summons was the proverbial "hearing voices in your head," and auditory delusions weren't part of my normal psychopathology. How did I answer back? I tried mentally forming a response and waited.

"Come… ena. Answer…!"

Okay, she couldn't hear me and I was losing her. I concentrated harder, picturing myself saying the words. Silence returned.

"Paige?" I said, testing the words aloud. "Are you there?"

No response. I called her again, mentally this time. Still nothing. The knot in my head loosened and I began to panic. Had I lost her? What if I couldn't do this? Damn it, concentrate. What had Ruth told me? Relax. Clear your head. My head was clear… well, excepting the frustration zipping through my brain. Concentrate, concentrate. No good. The harder I tried, the more I feared I couldn't do it. Now I was stressed. And Paige was gone. I took a deep breath. Forget this. Go have a shower. Dress. Relax. She'd try again… I hoped.

Paige's second attempt came about two hours later. This time I was lying in bed, reading a boring magazine article and half asleep. It must have been the perfect telepathy environment. When I heard her call, I responded without thinking, answering in my head.

"Good," she said. "… there."

"I can barely hear you," I said.

"That's… you don't… experience."

Although I couldn't hear the full sentence, I could guess at the missing content. I couldn't hear her because I was new at this. The problem had nothing to do with her inexperience. Naturally.

"… Ruth?"

"She's okay."

"Good." Louder, clearer, as if the reassurance added to the signal. "How about you? Are you okay?"

"Surviving."

"Good. Hold on then."

"Hold-?"

Too late. The signal disconnected. I was alone. Again. Damn her.

Twenty minutes later. "Okay, I'm back."

Paige. Another easy contact, probably because, once again, I wasn't expecting it.

"You ready?" she asked.

"For what?"

The floor slid out from under me. I twisted to break my fall, but there was nothing there. No floor. No "me." The order to move came from my brain and went… nowhere. I was pitched into complete blackness, but I didn't lose consciousness. My brain went wild, issuing commands, move this, do that, look, sniff, listen, scream. Nothing. There was nothing to respond. I couldn't see, hear, speak, move, or smell. Every synapse in my brain exploded with panic. Absolute animal panic.

"Elena?"

I heard something! My mind scrambled back to sanity, clinging to that one word like a life raft. Who said that? Paige? No, not Paige. A man's voice. My heart leaped with recognition before my brain even figured it out.

"Jeremy?"

I said the word, didn't think it, but said it and heard it. Yet my lips didn't move and the voice I heard wasn't my own. It was Paige's.

I saw light. A blurred figure in front of me. Then a mental pop and everything became clear. I was sitting in a room. Jeremy stood in front of me.

"Jer?"

My words. Paige's voice. I tried standing. Nothing happened. I looked down and saw my hands resting on the arms of a chair, but they weren't my hands. The fingers were shorter, soft, bedecked with silver rings. I followed the line of my arm. Brown curls spilled over my shoulder, lying atop a dark green lily-of-the-valley-print sundress. A sundress? This was definitely not my body.

"Elena?" Jeremy crouched in front of me-or not me. He frowned. "Did this work? Are you there, sweetheart?"

"Jer?" I said again.

At the bottom of my field of vision, I saw my-the-lips move, but I felt nothing. Even my field of vision itself was skewed, the angle all wrong, like I was watching the scene through an oddly placed camera. I tried to shift upward, add some height to my position, but nothing happened. The sensation was unsettling to the point of panic. Was this what it was like to be paralyzed? My heart fluttered in my chest. I didn't feel it pounding, only perceived it in my mind, some gut-level awareness of my body's normal responses to fear, knowing that my heart should be fluttering, even if it wasn't.

"What-" I began. The voice was so alien in my ears that I had to stop. Swallowed. Mentally swallowed, I mean. If my throat moved, I wasn't aware of it. "Where am I? Who am I? I can't move."

Jeremy's face clouded. "Didn't she-?" He muttered something under his breath, then started again, calm. "Paige didn't explain?"

"Explain what? What the hell is going on?"

"She's transported you to her body. You can see, hear, speak, but you won't have any sort of mobility. She didn't explain-?"

"No, she dumped me into limbo and I woke up here. Showing off."

"I heard that," a distant voice in my head said. Paige.

"She's still here," I said. "There. Somewhere. Eavesdropping."

"I'm not eavesdropping," Paige said. "You have my body. Where am I supposed to go? I wasn't showing off. I knew you'd want to speak to Jeremy, so I wanted to surprise you. It should have been a smooth transition, but I guess your lack of experience-"

"My lack of experience?" I said.

"Ignore her," Jeremy said.

"I heard that," Paige said, quieter.

"How are you?" Jeremy asked. He laid his hand on mine. I saw it, but couldn't feel it and felt a pang of loss.

"Lonely," I said, surprising myself. I lightened my tone. "Not for lack of company, though. Seems I'm quite the popular 'guest' around this place. But it's-I'm-" I inhaled. Pull yourself together, Elena. That was the last thing Jeremy needed, to hear me on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Where had this come from?

"I'm tired," I said. "Not sleeping well, not eating well, no exercise. So I'm touchy. Cabin fever, I guess. Physically, I'm fine. They aren't torturing me, beating me, starving me. Nothing like that. I'll be okay."

"I know you will," he said softly. He pulled up a chair. "Do you feel up to talking about it?"

I told him about Bauer, Matasumi, rattled off some details on the guards and the other staff like Xavier, Tess, and Carmichael, giving him a rough picture of the situation. I explained as much as I could about the setup of the compound, then about the other captives, remembering Paige's silent presence and stopping myself before talking about Savannah.

"I'm only interested in getting you out," Jeremy said when I'd finished. "We can't worry about the others."

"I know."

"How are you holding up?"

"Fi-"

"Don't say 'fine,' Elena."

I paused. "Is Clay… around? Maybe I could talk to him… Just for a few minutes. I know we have to keep this short. No time for socializing. But I'd like-if I could…"

Jeremy was quiet. Inside my head, Paige muttered something. Alarm zinged through me.

"He's okay, isn't he?" I asked. "Nothing's happened-"

"Clay's fine," Jeremy said. "I know you'd like to speak to him, but it might not be… a good time. He's… sleeping."

"Sleep-?" I began.

"I am not sleeping," a voice growled from across the room. "Not voluntarily, at least."

I looked up to see Clay in the doorway, hair tousled, eyes dimmed by sedatives. He lumbered into the room like a bear awaking from hibernation.

"Clay," I said, heart tripping so fast I could barely get his name out.

He stopped and fixed me with a scowl. My next words jammed in my throat. I swallowed them and tried again.

"Causing trouble again?" I asked, forcing a smile into my voice. "What did you do to make Jeremy drug you up?"

His scowl hardened with something I'd seen in his face a million times, but never when he looked at me. Contempt. His lips twisted, and he opened his mouth to say something, then decided I wasn't worth the effort and turned his attention to Jeremy.

"Cl-" I began. My gut was solid rock. I couldn't breathe, could barely speak. "Clay?"

"Sit down, Clayton," Jeremy said. "I'm talking to-"

"I can see who you're talking to." Another twist of the lips. The briefest glare in my direction. "And I don't know why you're wasting your time."

"He thinks you're me," Paige whispered.

I knew that. Deep down, I knew that, but it didn't help. I saw the way he looked at me, and it didn't matter who Clay thought was there, he was looking at me. Me.

"It's not Paige," Jeremy said. "It's Elena. She's communicating through Paige."

Clay's expression didn't change. Didn't soften. Not even for a second. He turned his stare to me and I saw the disdain there, stronger now, hard and sharp.

"Is that what she told you?" he said. "I know you want attention, Paige, but this is low. Even for you."

"It's me, Clay," I said. "It's not Paige."

He sneered, and I saw everything there that I'd never wanted to see in Clay's face when he looked at me, every drop of contempt he had for humans. I'd had nightmares of this, seeing him turn that look on me. I'd woken sweating, blood pounding, absolutely terrified, the way no childhood nightmare had ever frightened me. Now I looked at him and something snapped. The world went black.